You want to know how massively weird Buffy’s life was?
Take in to factor the vampire sitting awkwardly to her right. Blonde hair, black leather, huge clanky boots, swagger. Spike. She mentioned the awkwardness, right? Because there was that, and it was pretty much filling up the entire space between them. That and that fun sort of uncomfortable silence that falls between two people when they have absolutely no idea what to say to each other. He was about as aware of it as she was, and he kept staring at her door, looking like any second he was ready to bolt.
Oh, and she mentioned the fact that this vampire in question, Spike, he was supposed to be dead, right? Or... deader, in the 'dust in the wind' sense. About a year ago she'd left him to burn to dust at the bottom of the Hellmouth. And he'd done so. Big, dust-y ending. Huge with the finality and much with the 'dust'.
Ergo current awkwardness.
So a few nights ago, she's dancing at some club with The Immortal. And hey, let's pause and bask in the irony that the guy was actually immortal. And... let's ignore the fact that she willingly dated someone who called himself that. Third person, too. Real modest, that guy. But she was with him, because, hey - non-Slayer Buffy here. Fun-Buffy. Title-free Buffy. Carefree-Buffy who just wanted to have a fun night at a club with her boyfriend.
Who was really more of a casual fling than anything...
Hello, Parker Abrams was she. Except for that whole 'deceit' aspect of it. It was pretty clear from the get-go between her and The Immortal (and god, yes - she actually called him that) that whatever happened between them, it'd be physical. No emotional commitment for Buffy. Emotional commitment = bad. He, of course, didn't seem to mind at all.
But, right. She was at this club, doing the whole 'carefree, my-life-is-so-good-right-now' thing, when all of a sudden - Slayer tinglies. Okay, that was a slightly less accurate description - they were Buffy tinglies, specially enhanced by the Slayer-within. Felt them mid-whirl, too. She was in the middle of a particularly nice move, one that she'd picked up from Dawn (and she so didn't wanna know how her baby sister knew how to dance the way that she did) - when big, huge familiar sort of feeling washed over her. One of those type of feelings that stops you frozen. And it did. Mid-whirl, as she said. In a shiver, goosebumps covered her arms.
She'd looked around the room, not really knowing what she was looking for. The small hair that lined the back of her neck rose and she'd shivered again. Vampire. She'd recognized the feeling instantly. But, right, of course. She was standing next to The Immortal, naturally she'd get the Slayer tinglies. But these weren't Immortal tinglies... these were... familiar tinglies. Ones she hadn't felt since Sunnydale. Ones that ached just at the thought of them.
A fight had broke loose and she was pulled into The Immortal's convenient arms. She'd tried to pry herself off of him, but he held her close. She figured he was doing the whole 'protective boyfriend' thing, you know - trying to keep her defenseless Slayer self safe from the big bad bar brawl - but turns out, not so much. She'd managed to push herself away from him, and stood on the tip of her toes, probably putting her at a full height of about 5'3", as she tried to see what was going on over the heads of the freakishly tall people packed inside the club.
Getting to the climatic part of the story, right? Yeah, and guess what she saw? Would it be surprising if she heavily hinted towards that vampire currently sitting to her right? Only she didn't know it was Spike at the time. She'd seen flashes of leather. Caught a glimpse or two of a round platinum white something she figured was probably a set-up for Disco Night. She heard yelling. Sounded familiar. Felt familiar. But The Immortal was dragging her away, lulling her with that accent of his as he guided her towards the exist. She'd resisted briefly, because, hey - always fun to see the pissed off people who started the fight when they ended up getting kicked out - but that accent in her ear. All soft and seducing.
Retrospective bad choice on her part.
When she'd gotten home later that night - heavy emphasis on the 'later' - guess who surprised her with a squeal? No, it wasn't Spike. Though the mental imagery of that particular thought is kind of amusing. It was Andrew. He'd grabbed her by the arm and shoved a Juicy Juice into her hand as he pulled her towards the kitchen table. She met him with an immediate frown as she shrugged her purse off of her shoulder, letting it slide to the floor beside her. Andrew was in girl-talk mode, and she just knew she was about to have to remind him for the hundredth time that yes The Immortal was nice, yes The Immortal liked Andrew, but no The Immortal didn't think of him that way.
Except Andrew's excitement was higher than usual. He'd had one of them glossy sort of looks on his face that he wore whenever Xander would visit, "Return of the Jedi" in traitorous you-do-this-to-physically-hurt-me hand. Bad glossy look. It was a glossy look that promised of his overly active imagination coming into play.
"Soooo?" he'd said, in this conspirative sort of tone.
Frown widened on her end. "Okay, you? Are freaking me out. Where's Dawn?"
"Friends." There was a parental sigh, a far off look, a shrug, and then his smile returned. "You saw them, then? Did they find you? Because I thought after that third visit they'd probably give up, but they were persistent little buggers."
There were some initial 'Did Andrew just say 'buggers'?' thoughts, but she'd brushed them off. That was a Spike-ism, and Andrew had recently picked up on them. Oh the joy (sarcasm, by the way). But then she'd forced herself into the logical thoughts, her suspicion officially raised. "Did I see who?"
And that was when the glossy look dropped completely, replaced with the oh-shit look. That one he wore when he'd shown up at her doorstep a few months before, clothes slightly charred and a few bags of his belongings in hand. Not a promising look, considering his current residency. "Andrew," she'd warned, sliding the Juicy Juice threateningly across the table towards him.
He meeped. Swallowed in a completely dramatic way. Reached for the juice carton and picked it up in what had to be the slowest way humanly possible, and took a few long drinks. She was the very picture of patience while she had waited for him to explain to her exactly what the hell he was talking about. Okay, she was ready to pound his head in and physically drag the information out of him - but he pulled away from the straw in his mouth long enough to let out a guilty little chuckle.
"So..." he'd said again, straw back in his mouth. There was another swallow of juice. "Promise to not threaten bodily harm?"
There were empty promises made, and, well - the outcome of the story was pretty much the verbal equation of the vampire now sitting to her right. Spike had been to her apartment. Dusted-in-Sunnydale Spike who had apparently been alive and back for months. Really long months, in fact. Bunches of them, grouped together so that they almost resembled a year.
"Well, I should..." the previously-dusted vampire said, effectively breaking her out of her thoughts. He glanced at her, and she had to swallow away the nerves she'd been trying hard all night to ignore.
"We should talk," she told him instead, not wanting him to leave just yet.
Spike’s eyes widened in surprise, but he settled back into the couch cushions, glancing over at her expectantly.
"Grown-up Buffy," she explained casually, smiling. "No longer deathly afraid of the adult conversations."
He chuckled, and it hit her in a way that she hadn't felt in a long time. It warmed her instantly. "Already talked," he reminded her lightly.
Talked they did. And yelled and fought, and ohh - fun bit of crying on her part, too. "Yeah, but that was the less-fun type of talking. We haven't even got into the really good stuff yet."
His eyebrow shot up and again - warm, fuzzy feelings. Familiar feelings. The kind of feelings that immediately made her feel like they were back in Sunnydale those last couple of nights. Them, together in his bed, his arm wrapped around her as he held her close. Intimate sort of feelings.
"The good stuff?" he asked back emphatically, all mock-outrage. "And what exactly are you implyin' with that? My previous attempts at conversation not good enough for you now?"
"Naaah," she joked right back, warming up to the teasing in his eyes. "That was the boring stuff. Blah blah back from the dead, yadda yadda miraculous return." She flicked her wrist dismissively, trying hard to keep a straight face.
Another chuckle, and he shook his head, finally letting that scarred eyebrow drop. "S’pose all that yellin' wasn't exactly fun," he conceded, shrugging slightly.
She rolled her eyes obligingly. "Oh gee, you think? Cause I was wondering there for a while if maybe you weren't getting off on it."
His eyes widened again, and she grinned at that. "Grown-up Buffy likes to talk," he drawled, leer firmly in place. "And besides - seem to recall you doin' a lot of the yellin', too." Incase she didn't get the big implications he not-so-subtly threw at her, he waggled his eyebrows at her.
"You were being an ass," she defended herself, pouting slightly.
"Oh, right. I was bein' an ass."
She scowled, mock-offended. "Are you implying what I think you're implying?"
"Dunno," he shrugged innocently, lifting his legs up casually to rest them on her coffee table. "You thinkin' what I'm implyin'?"
There was an immediate sort of "Aghh! Shoes. On coffee table!" thought, but then she brushed that away, as frighteningly alarming it was that she'd even think of something so... so Giles. They were moving away from the awkwardness, and that was of the definite good. He was starting to relax even, to look comfortable - and it felt nice.
After Andrew had spilled that Spike and Angel were here, in Rome (yes, both of them, freakishly together and without one of them being a pile of expected dust) - she'd sort of existed in a nice state of denial about his return. And then, earlier today, which was roughly about the equivalent of 'a few days later' since that supposed night in Rome, Spike had shown back up at her apartment. Alone, Angel apparently back in Los Angeles.
Opening the door to a series of soft knocks, seeing him that first time... were there words for it? She decided that there weren't, because she was speechless for a good few minutes. She'd saw his eyes flash of hopefulness that first instant he saw her, and then watched them slowly darken to hurt as she continued to not say anything.
But, hello - state of traumatic speechless-ness! Andrew telling her that Spike was alive was one completely easy-to-not-believe thing. After all, it was Andrew - he who openly worshiped movie characters that didn't exist. He who also openly worshiped Spike, in an entirely obvious way. So Andrew's big declaration was met with more of a suspicious, "Uh huh" than anything. One of those kind of agreements that you go along with, nodding your head obligingly, just so you can slip away from the conversation. Lingering thoughts had loomed in her head - she reminded herself of her previously felt tinglies at that club. Those were quickly shooed away, as the insane and nowhere-near-being-capable thoughts that they were.
You just can't dismiss actual flesh and bones, though. Seeing Spike there outside of her door, alive... back.... looking exactly the same? She was speechless. Blindsided completely. It was an indescribable feeling, and one that took a while to shake. Eventually there was an internal realization that she hadn't actually acknowledged his presence with words and it was what snapped her into coherency, noticing the look in his eyes. The one that she'd seen way too much that last year in Sunnydale. The kicked-puppy look that instantly made her feel bad and guilty.
He came in. Talking and yelling ensued. It was a blame-each-other sort of game. Turns out he'd been alive for, you know - all them long months she'd thought he'd been gone. Yes, he enlightened her with a bit of a defensive edge, he'd been living it up in Los Angeles, willingly staying with Angel. There was some jealousy on her part, which she immediately pushed away, because being jealous over the fact that Spike stayed in LA? Implied reasons were not comforting. He'd dismissed those entirely when he'd asked her about The Immortal. He did so in an obnoxious way, too. 'So, how's the boyfriend', he'd said, sneering. Except, she retorted right back, she didn't have a boyfriend - they'd broke up. There was shock on Spike's part, hurt on hers.
Zoning once again out of her thoughts, she realized that he'd asked her a question and she'd pretty much not answered it. He was staring again at the door, and she decided then that she hated this awkwardness between them. Spike was alive. Not dead, get over it! she yelled at herself. This was her, she who came back from the Beyond. She whose previous vampire lover also came back from the Beyond. She shouldn't be feeling so weird about it.
"Where are you staying?" she finally asked, hoping to break the currently-looming uncomfortableness.
He shrugged, staring down at his boots still propped up on her coffee table. "Hotel down the ways some."
Clipped answer. Forced conversation. "What's it called?" she asked, barely biting back her annoyance.
"Dunno," he answered, shrugging again. Looking towards the door again.
Okay, that's it. No more playing innocent. No more ignoring those looks. "It's a nice door," she said thinly, widening her eyes so he caught the accusation in them.
He looked at her guiltily, then nodded his head a little. "It is," he agreed evenly. "Stood outside of it a few different times. Fancy wood."
"Yeah, real nice wood, completely solid and everything. So - what gives?"
Surprised look by him. Please. "What do you mean?"
"You're two seconds from fleeing."
"Hey, I don't flee." He scoffed, frowning a bit. "Maybe bolt..."
"Why?"
She watched the emotions play across his face in silence, trying hard to not push them back into a conversation that would end up with them yelling again. "This isn't how I thought it'd go," he admitted softly.
"What, you actually pictured how this would go?" she asked back incredulously, internally sort of sighing at the romantic thought that that was. It meant he'd thought about her. It meant that he'd wanted it to happen.
He snorted. "Yeah. Complete ponce, I know."
"And... how was it supposed to go?"
"Tears, hugs, snogging..." He shrugged, smirk in place as he caught her eye. "Maybe a shag or two."
She smiled back, feeling that warmness again. "There were tears."
"Yeah," he agreed. "Fun things, those."
"So... I guess the yelling and fighting and the me-blaming-you wasn't exactly your reunion of choice?"
He breathed in deep, and let it out just as slowly. "I wasn't expecting anything, really."
"You weren't..."
"Well," he started, pausing in reconsideration. "Imagined it, a hundred times over. Never really expected it. Not after what happened last week."
They were back to the blame-Buffy-dating-The Immortal talk, if his raised eyebrow was any sort of indication. "Last week," she said, breathing it out hard. "Last week you and Angel were both idiots."
That one surprised him. "We were what?"
"Showing up, completely out of nowhere?"
"Showed up the same way tonight," he argued. "And we had a job to do, aside from you."
Crap. "Okay, fine - showing up and not actually telling me you were here?"
"Tried to," he countered. "You were on a date."
She let her head fall back onto the couch cushions, willing herself to not beat it against them as she breathed out a frustrated sigh. "Please tell me we're not back to that."
"Back to what, your boyfriend?"
"He's not my boyfriend." And she'd have to tell him this how many times before he let it go? She wasn't even seeing The Immortal anymore. No sex or anything. They'd pretty much ended things the morning after Andrew's big 'Spike's alive!' declaration. Yeah, she was in that nice state of denial about it, but there was something inside that believed him, even if it was just wishful thinking on her part. So they ended their... sex-ship? Relation-sex? Whatever it was. Fling? And not so surprisingly, The Immortal didn't seem affected by her sudden lack of interest in him. Even less surprisingly, she didn't care.
"Ohh, I'm sorry," Spike was saying, sarcastically of course. "Bad breakup?"
She huffed loudly at him. "And was it a bad breakup with Angel that finally has you back over here?"
His mouth snapped shut, and she grinned triumphantly. "Evil," he accused, glaring hard at her.
"Hey," she continued lightly. "I was being completely serious. You still haven't explained the whole deal between you and him."
"That's because you kept cutting me off," he retorted. "And there's no 'deal' or 'between' when it comes to me and that Poof."
"Yuh huh, which is why you decided that Spike's happy post-Sunnydale life had him included?"
Full on scoff by him. Maybe sort of a glower, too. "As I've told you before," he said, throwing another glare at her. "I had no bloody choice in the matter."
"Ohh," she teased, ignoring his argument completely. "British words means you're getting defensive."
The glower darkened, but she couldn't help but keep grinning. Weird familiar banter. Something she hadn't even done with Spike that last year in Sunnydale, but all of a sudden it was comforting, and - she mentioned the familiar, right? Because it was.
"British means I'm British."
She rolled her eyes at the obviousness of that statement, before looking at him. She caught his look, and it'd softened considerably. It was one of them open looks that had him looking completely vulnerable. Huge contradiction that it was - big, bad leather-clad Spike - vulnerable. "Are we okay?" she asked suddenly, it coming out before she could edit it to a less desperate tone.
"You stop mentioning the Poof..." he teased, trailing off when he caught her serious look. "I don't know," he admitted, staring pointedly at her.
Great. Her decision. She sighed, pulling her legs up beside her so that she could get more comfortable. "I think..." she started, and then did the stupid thing and looked up at Spike. Him and his open face, with so much hope in it, all of it hanging on her answer. "I want us to be."
"Yeah," he agreed, and turned away from her again.
"We should be, right?"
He shrugged. "'S’pose so."
"Do you think we are?" she pressed, hopefully keeping that desperate tone out of her voice that she'd heard in her head.
"Dunno," he answered, still not looking at her.
Okay. This was not turning out to be the best of reunions. What was it like when Angel had first come back? Well... he was a bit insane, so... no real comparison there. Plus she did run him through with a sword, sending him to a hell dimension for a couple hundred of years. Awkwardness was a bit expected. And when she came back? Seeing Spike for that first time... she wondered if he felt the same way then that she does now? Was it awkward for him? Or uncomfortable? She tried to remember, but all she kept seeing was that face of his that he met her with at the bottom of her staircase. Openly awed.
And then it hit her. In one of those cliché type ways that practically had her bolting upright in her seat - the awkwardness between them. Uncomfortable tension. God, could she be anymore dense?
I love you.
No you don't, but thanks for saying it.
He hadn't mentioned that once since he'd been back, and she hadn't even thought about it. But thinking back... every little thing that he's said, every look he's given her, every everything - it was there, unspoken between the two.
"You were right," she told him quietly, blurting it out without any sort of pretense. She heard him expel a low, hissing breath, and knew that she didn't even have to clarify exactly what it was he was right about. Of course. The thing hanging between them the entire night that she was just now picking up on, it was already there for him - he was just waiting for her to bring it up.
"This your idea of casual conversation, then?" he shot back, his voice completely emotionless.
"Spike--"
"No, it's okay," he cut her off immediately, staring intently at things in the room that weren't her. "I knew it. Said I was right, didn't you? No real revelations here, just a confirmation of sort."
"Spike," she tried again, her voice a bit louder.
"So. I guess the Champ was right, then. God how he's gonna gloat." He turned to her, catching her eye briefly. "Don't think I'm not gonna hear about sodding cookie dough the minute I step back into Wolfram and Hart."
Wait, what? "Back to--"
"Yeah, well - I should probably get going now. Book a flight back to LA... your precious forehead'll be needin' me, no doubt," he said, starting to push off the couch with the last of his words.
"God, will you just stop," she yelled, effectively halting his movement. "Do you hear interjections, or are you that in love with your own voice you just keep on talking?"
"It's a good voice," he defended automatically, falling back onto the couch.
"Spike," she started up again.
"And I don't wanna hear it, alright? I don't want your pity. I just wanted to know... for sure... and now I do. Closure and all that rot."
"You are way too dramatic."
"I'm way too... what?"
"You think you could've been any more dramatic? Because I'm thinking no."
His kicked-puppy look softened a bit, replaced with a scowl. "I'm dramatic? Have you met your poof of an ex-boyfriend?"
She rolled her eyes. "Back to Angel again? Are you sure there's nothing going on between you two?"
Another scoff. "Please, I do have standards. Besides, you're the one who went there - I just mentioned 'the poof'. Could've been talking about your other cardboard-branded ex-boyfriend."
She widened her eyes, but dropped the retort just the same. "You didn't let me finish," she told him instead, bringing them back to what she'd started to say.
He leaned back at that, stretching in a completely Spike-esque (read: dramatic) way as his feet once again went to the top of her coffee table. "Ohhh, right. So, what - this where you rip my heart out completely?" It was said jokingly, but his voice, his eyes - there was hurt there.
"And here I thought with my big 'you were right' admittance, you'd get all annoyingly victorious on me."
"Cause that's something I'd want to be right about?" he shot back, this time the hurt clearly evident.
Mouth? Wrong thing to say. Brain? Wrong thing to think. "I didn't mean... that was a joke."
"So I noticed," he replied thinly, folding his hands down across his chest. Closed off, once again. Wasn't that supposed to be her? Wasn't he supposed to be the one trying to fix things, and she was supposed to be all resistant and hesitant?
"What I meant," she started, and breathed out a reassuring breath. Grown-up Buffy, she reminded herself. After Spike's death, after Anya's... she'd made a pact to not keep things bottled in so tightly. With the lack of annual world-saving responsibilities thanks to Willow's channel-your-Inner Slayer! spell, she'd slowly loosened into the carefree person she was today. Not entirely without responsibility, but nothing that she couldn't handle without wanting to revert into her previously self-only ways. Nothing that had her cutting everybody out. And she liked that. She needed to embrace that. "What I was saying," she started again.
"I was right," he said tightly, helping her along.
"Kind of," she agreed, meeting his eyes at that. "I don't think I loved you," she admitted, and saw his face drop completely. "Not like the way you loved me," she quickly added, wanting to not see that look, wanting to fix things. "I think... I know I loved you. I did. And not in a 'yay, so glad he's sacrificing himself for us!' type way. Though, we were... thankful, you know..."
"Yeah," he said, smiling a bit. He turned more towards her, watching her intently. She shifted a bit from his obvious attention. Plus? Grown-up Buffy still held a few lingering characteristics of Sunnydale-Buffy. The conversation was still a hard one to have, mostly because it was still being sorted out internally. "Did it for you, mostly..." he told her quietly.
She swallowed. "I don't know what to say to that."
"You don't have to say anything," he told her bluntly. "Wasn't just for you."
"Good, I'm... I'm glad." She stopped, and looked down at her hands. Nice manicured hands, ones that didn't return her stare with hard blue eyes that bore into her, seeing into her like nobody else ever had. "So, like I was saying..." She felt his hand under her chin, lifting her head back upwards. Immediately a wave of non-Slayer tinglies washed through her, from his hand on her, and from the look in his eyes she was met with.
"You were sayin'," he said, dropping his hand back away from her with a small, encouraging smile.
Okay, this conversation? She was immediately backing out of. Grown-up Buffy was in no way prepared for these type of feelings, strong and as real as they were. "That was pretty much it," she said quickly, blushing furiously when his eyebrow raised. How did he always manage to see through her lies?
He shifted in his own seat, his left hand still laying on the couch between them from where he'd dropped it, the tip of his fingers just barely touching her jean-covered knee. "You, ah..." He looked at her hesitantly, his eyes darting back away when he'd found she was staring at him. "You said you loved me..."
"So you caught that? And without immediately calling me on it? I'm impressed with your casualness."
"Well there was that fun bit of 'you were right' that came before."
"There was. And you were. I've said that enough, right? Your ego's not gonna massively swell by defect, is it?"
He chuckled. "Say it a few more times, let's see." And then his face turned serious again, just like that, as he dropped his feet off of her coffee table. He turned fully to stare at her, that intense look on his face again that immediately made her throat feel like it was cutting off. The one that dried her mouth and sped up her heart. "When you said it... the you love me part... what'd it mean?"
Internal sort of warning bells went off at the seriousness of that question. This wouldn't be just a casual, 'Hey Xand, thanks for stopping by - love ya!' type declaration. This was big. Big no-going-back type of admitting. Naturally she was terrified and clinging to her defenses. "Does it have to mean anything?" she instinctively blurted out, only to be met with a sort of deja-vu at that. Then she remembered... that night, in the kitchen, in Sunnydale...
"Yes," he said this time, surprising her with the force behind the word. "Does it mean something?"
"I think so. I just don't know what." That was the partial truth anyway.
"When you say you loved me...?"
"I meant it... I mean it," she assured him. And then frowned. "Sort of."
He matched her frown with his own. "Sort of? What's that mean, then?"
"There's a big difference between 'love' and 'in love'," she told him quietly.
"Rot," he immediately countered, surprising her again. "You either love someone, or you don't."
"It's not that easy."
"Ohh, really? Coming from you, that's pretty ironic."
"And what's that supposed to mean?"
"You forgettin' who you're talking to or somethin'? Need the words 'evil, soulless thing' swimmin' around in your head to be reminded of just how black and white love is?"
She stirred at that, taken aback completely. "That was different," she countered hesitantly, already knowing that this was a lost argument.
"Different, how? 'Cause it's fittin' to your argument this time?" He shook his head, scooting a few inches towards her. "Doesn't work that way," he told her flatly, lifting his hand up to rest it on the top of the cushions between them, erasing even more of the space between them.
"How does it work then, oh Enlightener of Love?" she shot back defensively.
It didn't deter him in the slightest. If anything, it only provoked him. He leaned in and things shadowed around her as his form blocked out the light from the lamp behind him, enveloping them in a bit of darkness. His face was close, the leather of his duster bunched up between them and pressing softly into her, a constant reminder of his presence. "You love, or you don't. There's no 'sort of'," he told her, referring back to her earlier words. "You feel it, or you don't."
"Feel it?" Her voice was coming out softer as he seemed to keep moving closer, and she couldn't for the life of her take her eyes off of his.
"You feel it inside you when you stare at somebody," he said intently, his eyes locked with hers. "Just know that there's somethin' about them, somethin' you can't exactly place. But you feel it. It hurts when they're gone... so bloody much..."
"Spike..." she started, overwhelmed, as he was most definitely inching himself closer. He was staring at her with eyes so soft and so deep. It would be so easy to drown in them.
"I love you, Buffy…” he told her, his voice low and rumbling over her, heavy with conviction. “Always, you know that? I didn't stay away cause I stopped. I could never stop loving you."
"I--"
"I missed you..." he breathed out shakily, cutting her off. "So much... I never thought..." He swallowed, and suddenly there was nothing but a few inches between them, his hopeful eyes staring back at her.
"I missed you, too," she admitted, instinctively reaching out to touch him. He immediately grabbed her arms, pulling her into him. "God, Spike... I missed you." She relaxed in his embrace, letting him hold onto her tight as her hands roamed over him. Felt the tight muscles of his back, the thickness of the duster against his chest, the soft hair behind his neck. Spike was alive. Spike was real. It all started to hit her in a way it hadn't before. Reality came crashing through and Spike really was back.
---------------------------------------------------
squawks
05/18/17 04:16 am
pj! I remember wishing one of your stories would be finished seriously about a decade ago. Amazing. I just tried an old password I used to use and amazingly got in too. Memories!
pj
03/20/17 01:20 am
10 yrs later, i finally rem my username and password. Pari, you rock. Hope you are well.
Rabbit_moon1
12/23/16 01:12 pm
I donate every month. Please donate to keep this site up!
AudryDaluz1
10/06/16 08:34 am
Great post.
Chrissel
08/31/16 03:45 pm
And anyone else who loves this site, it's worth mentioning there's a nifty little "Donate" option just below the shout box here! ;)
Chrissel
08/31/16 03:43 pm
Just wanted to take a moment to thank Pari and all the mods for maintaining such a great site!
05/18/17 04:16 am
pj! I remember wishing one of your stories would be finished seriously about a decade ago. Amazing. I just tried an old password I used to use and amazingly got in too. Memories!
pj
03/20/17 01:20 am
10 yrs later, i finally rem my username and password. Pari, you rock. Hope you are well.
Rabbit_moon1
12/23/16 01:12 pm
I donate every month. Please donate to keep this site up!
AudryDaluz1
10/06/16 08:34 am
Great post.
Chrissel
08/31/16 03:45 pm
And anyone else who loves this site, it's worth mentioning there's a nifty little "Donate" option just below the shout box here! ;)
Chrissel
08/31/16 03:43 pm
Just wanted to take a moment to thank Pari and all the mods for maintaining such a great site!